Abstract. Recent years have seen a rapid reduction in the summer Arctic sea ice extent. To both understand this trend and project the future evolution of the summer Arctic sea ice, a better understanding of the physical processes that drive the seasonal loss of sea ice is required. The marginal ice zone, here defined as regions with between 15 % and 80 % sea ice cover, is the region separating pack ice from the open ocean. Accurate modelling of this region is important to understand the dominant mechanisms involved in seasonal sea ice loss. Evolution of the marginal ice zone is determined by complex interactions between the atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, and ocean surface waves. Therefore, this region presents a significant modelling challenge. Sea ice floes span a range of sizes but sea ice models within climate models assume they adopt a constant size. Floe size influences the lateral melt rate of sea ice and momentum transfer between atmosphere, sea ice, and ocean, all important processes within the marginal ice zone. In this study, the floe size distribution is represented as a power law defined by an upper floe size cut-off, lower floe size cut-off, and power-law exponent. This distribution is also defined by a new tracer that varies in response to lateral melting, wave-induced break-up, freezing conditions, and advection. This distribution is implemented within a sea ice model coupled to a prognostic ocean mixed-layer model. We present results to show that the use of a power-law floe size distribution has a spatially and temporally dependent impact on the sea ice, in particular increasing the role of the marginal ice zone in seasonal sea ice loss. This feature is important in correcting existing biases within sea ice models. In addition, we show a much stronger model sensitivity to floe size distribution parameters than other parameters used to calculate lateral melt, justifying the focus on floe size distribution in model development. We also find that the attenuation rate of waves propagating under the sea ice cover modulates the impact of wave break-up on the floe size distribution. It is finally concluded that the model approach presented here is a flexible tool for assessing the importance of a floe size distribution in the evolution of sea ice and is a useful stepping stone for future development of floe size modelling.

Abstract. Sea ice is composed of discrete units called floes. Observations show that these floes can adopt a range of sizes spanning orders of magnitude, from metres to tens of kilometres. Floe size impacts the nature and magnitude of interactions between the sea ice, ocean, and atmosphere including lateral melt rate and momentum and heat exchange. However, large-scale geophysical sea ice models employ a continuum approach and traditionally either assume floes adopt a constant size or do not include an explicit treatment of floe size. In this study we apply novel observations to analyse two alternative approaches to modelling a floe size distribution (FSD) within the state-of-the-art CICE sea ice model. The first model considered is a prognostic floe size–thickness distribution where the shape of the distribution is an emergent feature of the model and is not assumed a priori. The second model considered, the WIPoFSD (Waves-in-Ice module and Power law Floe Size Distribution) model, assumes floe size follows a power law with a constant exponent. We introduce a parameterisation motivated by idealised models of in-plane brittle fracture to the prognostic model and demonstrate that the inclusion of this scheme enables the prognostic model to achieve a reasonable match against the novel observations for mid-sized floes (100 m–2 km). While neither FSD model results in a significant improvement in the ability of CICE to simulate pan-Arctic metrics in a stand-alone sea ice configuration, larger impacts can be seen over regional scales in sea ice concentration and thickness. We find that the prognostic model particularly enhances sea ice melt in the early melt season, whereas for the WIPoFSD model this melt increase occurs primarily during the late melt season. We then show that these differences between the two FSD models can be explained by considering the effective floe size, a metric used to characterise a given FSD. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages to these different approaches to modelling the FSD. We note that although the WIPoFSD model is unable to represent potentially important features of annual FSD evolution seen with the prognostic model, it is less computationally expensive and produces a better fit to novel FSD observations derived from 2 m resolution MEDEA imagery, possibly making this a stronger candidate for inclusion in climate models.

Abstract. Recent years have seen a rapid reduction in the summer Arctic sea ice extent. To both understand this trend and project the future evolution of the summer Arctic sea ice, a better understanding of the physical processes that drive the seasonal loss of sea ice is required. The marginal ice zone, here defined as regions with between 15 and 80 % sea ice cover, is the region separating pack ice from open ocean. Accurate modelling of this region is important to understand the dominant mechanisms involved in seasonal sea ice loss. Evolution of the marginal ice zone is determined by complex interactions between the atmosphere, sea ice, ocean, and ocean surface waves. Therefore, this region presents a significant modelling challenge. Sea ice floes span a range of sizes but climate sea ice models assume they adopt a constant size. Floe size influences the lateral melt rate of sea ice and momentum transfer between atmosphere, sea ice, and ocean, all important processes within the marginal ice zone. In this study, the floe size distribution is represented as a truncated power law defined by three key parameters: minimum floe size, maximum floe size, and power law exponent. This distribution is implemented within a sea ice model coupled to a prognostic ocean mixed layer model. We present results to show that the use of a power law derived floe size distribution has a spatially and temporally dependent impact on the sea ice, in particular increasing the role of the marginal ice zone in seasonal sea ice loss. This feature is important in correcting existing biases within sea ice models. In addition, we show a much stronger model sensitivity to floe size distribution parameters than other parameters used to calculate lateral melt, justifying the focus on floe size distribution in model development. It is finally concluded that the model approach presented here is a flexible tool for assessing the importance of a floe size distribution in the evolution of sea ice and is suitable for applications where a simple but realistic floe size distribution model is required.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is increasingly being accepted as a necessary component of any effort to mitigate the impact of anthropogenic climate change, as it is both a relatively mature and easily implemented technology. High-temperature CO 2 absorption looping is a promising process that offers a much lower energy penalty than the current state of the art amine scrubbing techniques, but more effective materials are required for widespread implementation. This work describes the experimental characterisation and CO 2 absorption properties of several new ternary transition metal oxides predicted by high-throughput DFT screening. One material reported here, Li 5 SbO 5 , displays reversible CO 2 sorption, and maintains ∼72 % of its theoretical capacity out to 25 cycles. The results in this work are used to discuss major influences on CO 2 absorption capacity and rate, including the role of the crystal structure, the transition metal, the alkali or alkaline earth metal, and the competing roles of thermodynamics and kinetics. Notably, this work shows the extent and rate to which ternary metal oxides carbonate is driven primarily by the identity of the alkali or alkaline earth ion and the nature of the crystal structure, whereas the identity of the e transition ion carries little influence in the systems studied here.